


Heinous Acts Against an Evil Despot

by Olive_the_Olive



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 20:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7589020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olive_the_Olive/pseuds/Olive_the_Olive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mix of the Beta and Alpha universes AU. Rose takes advantage of a rare break in Jane's skepticism to tell her about their ancestors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heinous Acts Against an Evil Despot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anxiousAnarchist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousAnarchist/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Springing up from the late last root](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3165638) by [anxiousAnarchist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anxiousAnarchist/pseuds/anxiousAnarchist). 



gutsyGumshoe [GG] began bothering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 1:11

GG: Hey.  
GG: Rose?  
GG: Hm.  
TT: Yes?  
TT: I'm a little busy.

You return your phone to your sylladex and creep stealthily out the back door. You see some carapacians in the distance, their black shells stark against the white building behind them, but they do not notice you, and you ignore them, as you always do. You continue towards the lab, which is on nearly the opposite side of the floating chessboard flotilla.

Jane doesn't believe you when you allude to any part of your situation out here, but you cannot exactly blame her. It is not easy to reject an uncomfortable truth, or a reality that contradicts one's own worldview, and most people prefer living in their own constructed realities to having to restructure those realities. Jane is probably happier believing that you are her contemporary, and that Betty Crocker is not an alien empress poised to seize power and drown every trace of human civilization.

The other reason you don't blame Jane for not believing you, is that some part of you knows that all sounds ridiculous. It probably doesn't help that Dave sometimes just makes shit up about “living in the future” either.

You're being unfair to him. You occasionally make some exaggerations, too. But it's funnier when you do it.

GG: I'll make it quick, then. I was just the target of two assassination attempts! One was in the real world, in the form of an exploding mailbox. The other was in my dreams, and I believe that one was successful. Our dream selves may all be in grave danger!  
TT: That is concerning. You should alert Dave, since his dream self is actually awake. At least, that's what I've come to conclude from years of analysis.  
TT: I think he's aware of it at this point, but he pretends not to be so he can make up dreams for me to do my “therapy shtick” on.  
GG: I'll let him know. However, there's something else I wanted to tell you.

It takes her a while to type. You're halfway to the lab already.

If you're honest here, you could get there a lot faster if you had used the transportalizer back in the house, but you've made it a point to avoid your mother's room. You're not sure why you call it that. The “walk-in liquor cabinet” might be more accurate. You're certain that your ancestor's decision to leave you a room full of booze was a not-so-subtle dig at you, so you've never touched any of it. The fact that you're attempting to engage in some game of one-upsmanship with a woman you've never even met is probably indicative of something, though. Crippling loneliness, for starters, but you also enjoy reading up on plausible disorders.

GG: Before I was stabbed, I had a rather long gander at Skaia. I saw you in the clouds, and our friends, as well as some people I have never met before. It was a great deal to take in, and I'm not sure I understand it all, but suffice to say it has made me feel a bit foolish. I always thought I knew so much about the world, and I ruled so much out, without giving it a second thought! I guess what I am trying to say is my doubts about your story are a bit shaken, and I feel like a bit of a chump for not believing you.  
TT: Some amount of skepticism is probably healthy.  
GG: Yes, but I fear I went rather overboard. I feel awful for distrusting you.

You arrive at the lab. The whole place is humming. It runs off solar power, and you think it also generates electricity from the ocean currents, so the place never really shuts down. At the center of the facility, beyond the greenhouses, are the appearification consoles, and that’s where you go.  There’s a mutant cat lying on a box with some wires coming out of it. You have no idea what it is, but you think it has something to do with delivering power to the machines in this area, and you know it’s usually warm, which is undoubtedly why the cats love it. You check the time, and then take a book out of your sylladex to double check your notes. You reread the relevant passage, and realize your earlier interpretation was off. You have at least fifteen minutes. You’re momentarily furious at yourself for your oversight, but it passes, and you have nothing to do, so you take your phone back out.

TT: Turns out I do have some time after all.  
GG: Oh, good!  
GG: I just filled in Strider on our dreamself problems, by the way.  
GG: He’s talking my ear off as usual!  
TT: He does do that.  
GG: I wanted to run an idea by you, if you don’t mind me doing so.  
TT: Of course not.  
GG: I want to make up for my attitude in the past.  
GG: So my proposal is this: for twenty-four hours, I’ll believe anything you tell me.  
TT: Really?  
TT: So you’ll believe that Dave and I live about four hundred years in the future relative to you; that the world as we know it is primarily populated with small, mutant, sentient lizards; and that Crockercorp is run by an alien empress who is trying to take over the world?  
GG: ...If you say so!  
GG: Are you actually saying that about Crockercorp, though? It still doesn’t make sense to me.  
TT: I see it didn’t take long for you to take a defensive position on the subject.  
GG: Well, I know Crockercorp has a lot of influence, but it sells baking products! I just don't see how it could be up to anything nefarious!  
GG: I know I'm biased here, but I don't see how any mischief could be afoot in the company without me getting wind of it.  
GG: So I still find it very hard to believe!  
GG: However, if you say it’s true, I’ll believe it!  
TT: That’s an impressive level of commitment to this endeavor.  
TT: I wonder if there’s anything specific that you’re hoping I’ll say?  
TT: There must be something you’re struggling to come to terms with, at the heart of all this.  
TT: Something you haven’t been letting yourself consider seriously, perhaps.

Or your needling is a bit obvious, perhaps. You resist the urge to follow up that last message with the line, “Homosexual leanings, maybe?” A mutant kitten comes trotting over to you to rub against your legs. You don’t have anything to give it. And if you did, you’d get swarmed; there are a lot of cats in this place. You give it some scratches behind the ears instead.

GG: I don’t know about that! I just thought you could get me caught up on everything.  
TT: Interesting.  
TT: So basically, you're asking me to repeat everything I've ever told you, and you'll believe it?  
TT: I don't see how you think I can be trusted with that kind of power.  
GG: Well, to be honest, I was hoping you would take the opportunity to tell me what out of everything you have told me was true and what was nonsense!  
TT: You still maintain that I haven't been entirely truthful, even now that you've decided to trust me?  
GG: Well when you put it that way, that just makes me feel even more awful!  
TT: Don’t.  
TT: You weren’t exactly wrong in thinking that I’ve made some embellishments to the truth.  
TT: For example, I was making up that crap about the lizards.  
GG: Oh. :/  
TT: I should start from the beginning, I suppose.  
TT: You're familiar with Skaianet, right?  
GG: Ugh, yes. I know I shouldn't speak too harshly, since the founder was Jake's grandma, but the modern incarnation of the company is just clearly up to no good. It seems to exist primarily to sabotage Crockercorp!  
TT: It does. That was certainly Jake's grandmother's intent, anyway.  
GG: Oh. How do you know that?  
TT: It's a topic I've researched a fair amount. Historical records, you know.  
TT: The woman I consider to be my mother worked at Skaianet as well. She did some important work developing technology to fight the Condesce. But she is less famous than Jade English, of course, and kept a lower profile, so I doubt you have heard of her.  
TT: Still, she was equally accomplished in an eclectic collection of sciences. She met Jade English about ten years after the company was founded and was hired on the spot because of either her work with appearification tech or her charming personality - her words, not mine.  
TT: I think they knew each other well. They were close, even.

It occurs to you that you are telling Jane about your mother. The peripeteia here does not escape you; you're usually the one in the armchair, so to speak.

GG: Really? Have you mentioned any of this to Jake?  
TT: I have. He’s heard most of it.  
TT: He's far less skeptical than certain other friends, who will remain unnamed.  
GG: How rude! :B  
TT: Jade English really is a fascinating figure, though. From what I know, she grew up on the same island Jake lives on, with her adoptive brother, her dog, and the evil fish alien the world knows as Betty Crocker.  
GG: She had a brother?  
TT: She did. He stayed behind when she escaped, and therefore inherited the family name.  
TT: Are you a gutsy enough gumshoe to deduce who I'm referring to?  
GG: Oh gosh, do you mean my poppop?  
GG: That would make Jake's grandma my great aunt!  
GG: These connections between our families are so surprising! They all seem to have known each other. To think that Poppop was raised in the same household as Jake’s grandma, and that she was such good friends with your mother!  
TT: Right.  
TT: “Friends.”  
GG: I don't think I quite catch the meaning of those quotes.  
TT: Don't worry about it.  
TT: Anyway, following her escape, Jade took a new last name, dived into the world of scientific inquiry, and started Skaianet, with the express purpose of competing with and undermining Crockercorp. When Roxy Lalonde joined the company, those efforts became quite serious, even a threat.  
TT: There were several assassination attempts on both of them, and then they both disappeared quite suddenly.  
TT: I don’t have a lot of information about this, but it was only a few years ago from your perspective. I asked Jake and he has no idea where his grandmother is, although she was often on and off the island when he was young. He’s never met my mother either.  
GG: Were they killed?  
TT: I don’t think so.  
TT: Later, when the Condesce started making more overt moves towards world domination, several of her key media operatives were assassinated by sniper rifle.  
TT: And when the troll invasion began in earnest, Skaianet revealed they’d been secretly developing a veritable arsenal to arm humanity against the alien threat.  
TT: And I have other reasons to believe they survived.  
TT: One of my sources, for one.  
GG: Your sources?  
TT: I mentioned making use of historical records, but some of this I have deciphered from journals my mother left behind.  
TT: Or that she left in the house, anyway. I’m not sure if she intended them to be read. They’re heavily encoded.

You don't tell Jane that they are all encoded in absurdist wizard fanfiction. And there’s at least one code that Roxy clearly did want you to crack. It’s the journal you have with you now.

GG: Are there trolls everywhere in the future, then?  
TT: Oh no. They actually all died at once, very mysteriously, except for the Condesce. She disappeared for a while after that, but returned years later to finish what she started.  
TT: Her tyranny eventually drove humanity to extinction as well. It was the combination of her draconian policies and her decision to flood the globe that did it, really. To my knowledge, the only people left now are me, Dave, and some communities of carapacians.  
GG: So… the Earth is just doomed? Even after all they did?  
TT: There’s only so much they could do, I suppose. They did do a lot to delay the Condesce’s rise to power, though. The fact that she had to resort to an actual invasion is proof of that.

You don't like to think they failed. On the other hand, you do like to think that you could've done better somehow, in their shoes. But you're not really sure that you could.

You check the time again. You have a job to do. You plug in the coordinates you’d decoded into the appearifier. You press the button, and something that looks like a clam appears on the appearifier platform. You reach towards it, but before you can, something else appears on the platform, a folded piece of paper. You were certain you’d only appearified one thing, but that can only mean the paper wasn’t appearified at all. It was sendificated.

Your hands are slightly unsteady as you pick up the paper and unfold it. It’s a short note, scrawled in pink pen.

hey rosie!

hope you get this. (jade says u will tho and jade’s never wrong.) i hella wish i could’ve met u for real and been like a real mom and stuff, but you’re not gonna be around for a few hundred years so i guess we’re shit outta luck on that front. anyways, i just wnted to leave you a message before you went on the crazy adventures you’re gonna get 2 go on.

i love you, okay? maybe it’s weird to say i love you to someone you never actually got to meet. but i feel like i do so i’m gonna say it anyway. i always wanted a daughter and i’m super proud of you, and all the stuff you’re gonna do.

sorry this is so hella sappy. kick the fish queen’s ass 4 me okay?

Love,  
Mom (Roxy Lalonde, Real As Shit PhD)

p.s. thx for helping us gank the batterbitch’s shit. jade’s always wanted to do this

You blink a bit, your face tight, and pick up the clam. You discover that you can flip it open. The top half is mirror, and the bottom contains blush in a brilliant fuschia.

You send Jane two more messages, before heading back home to start the game.

TT: In a way, their resistance is our legacy.  
TT: So that's something to be proud of, at least.

**Author's Note:**

> I was really intrigued by the way the alpha and beta universes (not to mention the troll universe) were all kinda mixed together in Springing Up from the Late Last Root, and I got to thinking, if Jade and Roxy and John and Dirk are all contemporaries, does that mean that the other four kids are the ones who play Sburb in this universe? I was interested in that, so I decided to have Rose retell Jade and Roxy's story to Jane.


End file.
